BTC’s Take: Edward Boykin wrote Beefsteak Raid in 1960, and this exciting but ultimately strategically barren raid has not been covered in detail again until now, with Horace Mewborn’s detailed look at Hampton’s Beefsteak Raid. Chris Calkins, so long associated with Petersburg National Battlefield, covers Grant’s Seventh Offensive in December 1864 with a look at Gouverneur K. Warren’s “Applejack”, or Stony Creek Raid. The only complaint in this one is the surprising lack of maps. I would have expected a zoomed out map to show Hampton’s full inbound and outbound routes on the Beefsteak Raid, but this issue doesn’t contain such a map.

Book Summary/Review:

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Publisher Info:

In 1864 the Armies in Blue and Gray faced each other in earthworks, and no one could predict how long the Siege of Petersburg, Virginia would last. The boredom of trench warfare was broken on numerous occasions when troops launched out from their fortifications on various forays. The articles presented here, written by Chris Calkins and Horace Mewborn, highlight two exciting, often brutal events from the nine-month Petersburg siege.